The EBU Production Technology Seminar's programme is now final and it promises to be broad & deep. The organising team has put in plenty of use cases, ranging from ZDF's virtual News studio to YLE's Digitization Centre project and from Swiss Television's new HD 1 OB van (which will also be on-site for guided visits) to the BBC's Proms coverage in HD and surround sound. The event has a nautical flavour as well; the Dutch NPO will showcase its 'Beagle project' on how to do a multiplatform HD production from a moving ship.
| Camera know-how
Special mention must be made of the session on camera issues. For camera(wo)men eager to get the best out of their cameras, day one of the three-day event is especially attractive. Alan Roberts will give a masterclass on how to improve camera performance by optimizing their available settings and lens-expert Per Boehler (NRK) will explain the relevance and practicalities of HD lens-testing. The most innovative part of the seminar may be provided by Tom Poederbach. The seasoned Dutch cameraman will report on the growing influence of DSLR ('photo') cameras on professional productions, of course illustrated with plenty of examples.
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The seminar will not shie from critical issues, such as emission quality of HDTV. Andy Quested, the BBC's HD guru, will share his experiences on dealing with consumer expectations of HDTV. The IRT will present some of its ideas on automated quality assessment of HDTV. From Eurovision Operations, George Béry will inform the audience on what HD contribution links and bandwidth are being offered. A panel with representatives from DR, IRT, NRK. and the RAI will tackle the subject of how important quality actually is for broadcasters. Another 'thorny topic' relates to interoperability. Roland Fischer will touch on this from the client-side, in light of the file-based HD 1 workflow, Ingo Höntsh will look at it from an integrator's point of view and EBU's Hans Hoffmann will address the issue from a long-term strategic standpoint.
There are plenty more topics to be addressed next week; see the programme for full details.